DataStax launches Astra Block to support Web3 applications

DataStax said on Wednesday that it was launching a new cloud-based service, called Astra Block, to support the creation of Web3 applications.

Web3 is a decentralized version of the Internet in which content is recorded on blockchains, tokenized, or managed and accessed on distributed peer-to-peer networks.

Astra Block, which is based on the Ethereum blockchain that can be used to program smart contracts, will be available as part of the company’s Astra DB NoSQL Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS), which is based on Apache Cassandra.

Developers can use the new service to stream enhanced data from the Ethereum blockchain to build or scale Web3 experiences virtually on Astra DB, the company said.

Use cases include building applications to analyze any transaction within the blockchain history for insights, DataStax added.

Enterprise adoption of blockchain has grown over the years and market research firm Gartner estimates that at least 25% of enterprises will interact with customers via Web3 by 2025.

Data within the Astra Block used to build applications is decoded, enhanced and stored in a human-readable format, accessible via standard Cassandra Query Language (CQL) database queries, the company said.

Astra Block can decode and store the data used to build applications in a human-readable format, and the data can be accessed through standard Cassandra Query Language (CQL) database queries, the company said.

In addition, applications built with Astra Block can take advantage of Astra DB’s change data capture (CDC) and streaming features, DataStax added.

In June last year, the company made its Astra Streaming service generally available to help companies meet the challenge of going cloud-native and finding efficiencies around their existing infrastructure.

A version of Astra Block that offers a partial 20 GB blockchain dataset can be accessed through the free tier of Astra DB. Astra DB’s paid tier, based on pay-as-you-go usage and Astra DB’s standard pricing, includes the ability to clone the entire blockchain, updated as new blocks are added. Depending on user demand, DataStax will expand Astra Block to other blockchains.